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Invoking Cognitive Dissonance and the Abstract Machine July, 2015, Vol Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Criminology Invoking Cognitive Dissonance and the Abstract Machine July, 2015, Vol. 7(2):137-172 Milovanovic ______________________________________ July, 2015, p.p. 137-172 ______________________________________ Invoking Cognitive Dissonance and the ‘Abstract Machine’: Toward a Process Informational Paradigm – Response to Three Commentators Dragan Milovanovic,* Northeastern Illinois University ______________________________________ Introduction This is a response to three highly engaged, critical comments on my recent book, Quantum Holographic Criminology: Paradigm Shift in Criminology, Law and Transformative Justice (2014). Whereas Bruce Arrigo and Johannes Wheeldon employ and external critique, Raymond T. Bradley makes use of an internal critique. Bruce Arrigo, a highly productive, innovator, and influential critical criminologist, uses the occasion to not only come to terms with the book’s thesis, but to integrate it into further suggestive thought concerning the ethics of becoming. Johannes Wheeldon not only does a thorough critical comment on each of the chapters, noting three problematics, but also concludes with the value of its “cognitive dissonance” in contemporary criminology (from whom, respectfully, I have borrowed the notion in the title). Raymond T. Bradley, collaborator with Karl Pribram (who recently passed away, even as he wrote his last book at the age of 93, The Form Within), is an exceptional innovative scholar – whose groundbreaking work, unfortunately, for 40 years has remained on the margins, more so because of traditional paradigm constraints – has provided some critical reflections on the first half of the book (primarily chapters 1,2,3,4), leaving the integration with Deleuze and Guattari and others, as well as the application to criminology, law and transformative justice to others better versed in these respective areas. His work is especially provoking for better development of conceptions of transformative justice based not on Newtonian ontology of determinism, but on quantum and theory holography which provides the basis of bringing the subject back in as a potentially active and creative subject. Bradley (2010) has had the occasion to publish a novel approach to the nature of secret groups, including terrorist groups (their forms of solidarity and communication). As one of the founding figures of a quantum holographic approach in the social sciences, particularly in sociology, he provides an overview of the key components, even as he stresses that he is more concerned with the holographic component. He is especially engaged with Chapter 4 on agency, and the development of the offered Schema QD, an inter- and intra-subjectively constituted subject.1 He also provides five *Dragan Milovanovic, Ph.D., Professor and Brommel Distinguished Research Professor, Justice Studies Department, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, Illinois. Email: [email protected] 137 Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Criminology Invoking Cognitive Dissonance and the Abstract Machine July, 2015, Vol. 7(2):137-172 Milovanovic problematics (“issues”) with the book. He concludes with an integration of my Schema QD with his current work in progress, including “The Lens of Love: Holographic Eye of Universal Consciousness” and a forthcoming book, Consciousness and the Eye of Love. Each author provides some problematics/critiques whose further engagement is suggestive for fruitful future work. To each author I owe much gratitude, even with some of the intense constructive criticisms offered. After all, it is through pointed critical discussion that we can move the criminological, legal, and transformative justice fields toward an alternative ontological and epistemological-based framework, the “process informational paradigm,” which questions the fundamental assumptions derived from a Newtonian-driven “classical materialist paradigm” that has imprisoned conventional thought. My work applying quantum holography to criminology, law and transformative justice must be seen more as exploratory and a first approximation. There is much, much more to be done, as each of the commenting authors suggest. In no way should my brief snippets as to possible application to criminology, law and transformative justice be seen as definitive, complete theories. They are suggestive, transgressions of given boundaries of our contemporary classical materialist paradigm. They are more in the spirit of Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) “war machine.” For those not fully acquainted with quantum and holography principles, especially interested scholars and developing graduate students, my work, as well as the work of Bradley, are a call for reconsideration of conventional thought, a shift to well-developed principles in other disciplines. Graduate students often find themselves being socialized into the conventional paradigm practiced at their respective graduate departments which is often overly empirical and positivistic with little or no review of philosophy of science. I, for example, received my first master’s degree at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, but at the time (mid-1970s), it was perceived as a “cop shop,” only giving insider’s views of the pragmatics of fighting crime and the “thin blue line.” It was only through my own external reading, and a commitment to viewing the graduate experience as introductory to practitioner’s thought – those of insiders, often hardened by practical, street-level experience of fighting crime – that a realization set in that a new orientation was needed. Fortunately, I came across Richard Quinney’s Social Reality of Crime and Taylor, Walton, and Young’s The New Criminology while taking a summer course at my alma-mater which turned on the light. Hi and Julia Schwendinger’s “Defenders of Order or Guardians of Human Rights,” a later discovery, rounded off the key works that sent me off in a different trajectory than conventional graduate school often induces. Fortunately, while doing my Ph.D. work at School of Criminal Justice, SUNY at Albany –the leading “crim school” at the time that focused more on research and theory than practical experiences, whose “Albany model of criminal justice” was to influence the development of subsequent graduate schools in criminal justice – I was privileged to work with Graeme Newman, my thesis advisor, who was far from being a “critical criminologist,” but for myself and other left-leaning students, was incredibly supportive for doing scholarly work regardless of political persuasion. So, my message to graduate students, do not hesitate to go outside of the boundaries of the framework your own graduate program has pre-established. Seize the moment and develop the seeds of potential lines of inquiry that go beyond the bounds set by the program and the discipline in general but still being cognizant of the dominant orientation.2 1 See Schema QD and its portrayal on the cross capp, pp. 17,19 in the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Criminology: http://www.jtpcrim.org/July-2013/Article-1-QHCC-Revised-Reformatted- Milovanovic-July-2013.pdf One update that is found in QHC: |I i > , upper left corner, has been replaced with “discursive subject position.” See also Batiz and Milovanovic on “Research Gate” (2014). 2 My own theoretical journey has led me to a central concern with postmodern theory, particularly chaos theory (dynamic systems theory), psychoanalytic semiotics, edgework, and catastrophe theory. In the 80s my work was more occupied with versions of Marxist analysis, with the realization of the importance of a structural interpellation model in late capitalism and subsequently a constitutive 138 Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Criminology Invoking Cognitive Dissonance and the Abstract Machine July, 2015, Vol. 7(2):137-172 Milovanovic Brief Tutorial on Quantum Mechanics (and the Wave Function) and Holography (and Interference Patterns) It is probably useful, at this point, to briefly summarize what is fundamentally at stake in a paradigm shift. Two quick highlights will help the more unacquainted, one illumination for quantum mechanics, one for holography. Newtonian physics is ultimately about objects and trajectories in space and time. Objects are seen to have essences, with distinct boundaries and intrinsic properties on which forces act. Given a set of definable forces in 3-dimensional space (“initial conditions”) and a clockwork universe, with time moving linearly from past, to present, to future, a specific trajectory can be established (Newton’s F=ma). Pushing the logic, all is predictable by discovering the set of forces acting on objects. This is ultimately a deterministic universe. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, questions the notion of essences of objects, linear trajectories, and our notion of space and time. Time is atemporal, we can have retrocausal effects; space is nonlocal – studies have clearly indicated that two things located far apart can still instantly influence each other (quantum entanglement). The Schrödinger equation of the evolution of a system stipulates that we have “clouds of possibilities” moving through space with probabilistic outcomes. Waves reflect potentialities, possibilities for expression. Everything can be represented by a wave function. Wendt (2015), for example, argues each person is a walking wave function. For the mathematically inclined it is the absolute square of the wave function that produces an instantiation of one amongst the potential possible states we
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